Download the New Releases Audiobooks in History, Military

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Title: Passchendaele

Subtitle: A New History

Author: Nick Lloyd

Narrator: Mark Elstob

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-05-17

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob.

Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes.

The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.

Members Reviews:

Five Stars

A very good read, would recommend.

Excellent new book on a bloody battle of WWI

Excellent overview of this battle, what went wrong as well as right, what should and should not have been fought, and more. Lloyd covers all the major controversies on the battlefield, from the temporal separation of Messines and later portions of the battle, Gough's leading the Messines campaign, the wisdom or not of the final Canadian push at Passchendaele proper, and more. He also tackles the larger strategic issues such as whether this was the best place for the British to fight, and beyond that, the work of a relatively new prime minister, Lloyd George, in trying to assert civilian control over the British military in general and Haig in particular.

Haigh and Gough both come off poorly, as is right. Plumer comes off as well overall, but not perfect, and Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps comes off well.

Lloyd George doesn't get a free pass. Lloyd says he understands George's restraints, but that, at the same time, he could likely have put further clamps on Haig, Regarding his fears that if he pushed too much, the coalition would fail, Lloyd says that LG never came close to testing that statement.

Lloyd deals well with the German side of the lines, and this book is enhanced by multiple local-scale maps, well illustrated.

Good research, bad analysis, crazy conclusions

This is a very good and a very bad book at the same time. The author does a very good job of researching the battle of

Passchendaele. The overview and the detail he provides of the battle is reasonably good. But on the other side, the problem starts with the title of the book. Rather than just presenting a history of the battle, the author jumps off a cliff and presents an utterly absurd case that this battle represented good thinking, good planning and carried within it the possibility of a decisive success on the western front in World War I.

He claims that the British were close to a "decisive success" in September/October 1917. A success that would have forced a major German retreat from Belgium and would have even opened an opportunity for peace talks.

The problem is that his "lost victory" narrative isn't really supported by his own research. Its mostly the product of wishful thinking and speculative history. One could look at nearly any battle in history and "discover" a possibility for an overwhelming success. That if they had just tried a little harder to follow through on the battle plan, the entire war would have been changed.

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Title: Historic Moments in Speech: Military Conflicts

Author: The Speech Resource Company - editor

Narrator: Robert Wikstrom

Format: Original Recording

Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-26-17

Publisher: The Speech Resource Company, Inc.

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Speeches given during military conflicts made by world leaders, politicians, protesters, and military leaders. Featured are Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's declaration of war entering Great Britain into World War II, the famous "Infamy" speech given to Congress by President Roosevelt the day after Japan launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, and speeches about the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Gulf War, and the War on Terror. Produced by the Speech Resource Company and fully narrated by Robert Wikstrom.

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Title: War Stories

Subtitle: Gripping Tales of Courage, Cunning and Compassion

Author: Peter Snow, Ann MacMillan

Narrator: Peter Snow

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-21-17

Publisher: John Murray

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

A uniquely intimate account of ordinary men and women who rose to the challenge of war with acts of great heroism and humanity.

War Stories is a fascinating account of ordinary men and women swept up in the turbulence of war. These are the stories - many untold until now - of 34 individuals who have pushed the boundaries of love, bravery, suffering and terror beyond the imaginable. They span four centuries and four continents. There is the courage of Edward Seagar, who survived the Charge of the Light Brigade; the cunning of Krystyna Skarbek, quick-thinking spy and saboteur during the Second World War; the skullduggery of Benedict Arnold, who switched sides in the American War of Independence; and the compassion of Magdalene de Lancey, who tenderly nursed her dying husband at Waterloo.

Told with vivid narrative flair and full of unexpected insights, War Stories moves effortlessly from tales of spies, escapes and innovation to uplifting acts of humanity, celebrating men and women whose wartime experiences are beyond compare.

Members Reviews:

Exceptional Collection of People

This is another one of those safe audiobooks, it's well worth the money and your time.

A great collection of stories well presented and narrated, of the bravest of people who have selflessly strived and endeavored to shape the world we live in, or stand for what is right.

A grandiose flourish, yes, but listen to the book and I am sure you won't disagree, as these are not the usual stories we have become accustomed to and are not limited to history or nationality.

A wonderful book.

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Title: Dinosaur in a Haystack

Subtitle: Reflections in Natural History

Author: Stephen Jay Gould

Narrator: Meredith MacRae, Efrem Zimbalist

Format: Unabridged

Length: 18 hrs and 22 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-14-17

Publisher: Phoenix Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

Award-winning, best-selling author, evolutionary biologist, and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould takes the art of the essay to an unprecedented height of excellence in this vibrant collection of writings on science and natural history. From fads to fungus, baseball to beeswax, Gould always circles back to the great themes of time, change, and history, carrying listeners home to the centering theme of evolution. These unabridged selections were originally published in Natural History magazine. In April 2000, the US Library of Congress named Gould a "Living Legend". He died of cancer two years later at the age of 60. In 2008 he was posthumously awarded the Darwin-Wallace Medal along with 12 other recipients. Until 2008 this medal had been awarded only every 50 years by the Linnean Society of London.

Members Reviews:

This is trivial pursuit training

The audio stinks, it's like listening to a damaged CD inside a tunnel.

The essay's were probably interesting in the 1990's and probably prepared many people for Trivia contests, but that's not why I read books.

Worse than being scattered, the essays are boring and generally pure-opinion.

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Title: The Shipwreck of the MV Dunedin Star

Subtitle: The History of the Famous British Ship During World War II

Author: Charles River Editors

Narrator: Scott Clem

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-10-17

Publisher: Charles River Editors

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

"The U-boat can fairly be described as Hitler's last card, and he will play it for all he is worth." - Sir Stafford Cripps

On the morning of November 9, 1942, the Dunedin Star, a 13,000-ton refrigerated cargo ship, was tugged off her moorings, and nudged into the mouth of the Mersey River, that iconic entranceway to Liverpool Harbor, and the British gateway to the outside world. On her port side, Fort Perch hung ghostly and silent in the dawn light, and the old Leashow Lighthouse blinked forlornly on the North Wirral headland. As she passed the harbor walls and entered open water, the harbor pilot shook the captain's hand and wished him Godspeed, before clambering down to the pilot boat, chugging softly alongside the ship. Orders were given, and in the engine room, the great wheels began to turn. Under power, the Dunedin Star passed alongside the Liver Building and the low bluffs of Crosby, before gliding out into the shipping lanes. Within an hour, as the fog was beginning to clear, she entered upon the grey and restless waters of the Irish Sea, heading toward Saint Georges Channel, and the wide-open, naked expanse, of the North Atlantic Ocean.

The Dunedin Star belonged to the Blue Star Line, a Liverpool-based company that had so far suffered a disproportionate loss of tonnage, thanks to the attrition of war. That year alone, Blue Star could list the Avila Star, the Viking Star, the Andalucía Star, the Empire Star, and the Pacific Star, all casualties of U-Boat attacks, and by the end of the year, the Ionic, Doric, Sultan, Adelaide, Wellington, Avelona, Arandora, Auckland, Napier, Almeda, Afric, Rodney, Imperial, Tacoma, and Scottish Stars would join that list. At the outbreak of war in 1939, there had been 38 Blue Star ships afloat, but by the end of the war, there would be only nine, and in total, 646 Blue Star seamen would lose their lives as a consequence of these losses.The Dunedin Star was enroute to Egypt, via the Cape and Aden, a lengthy diversion around the southern tip of Africa made necessary by the effective closure of the Mediterranean to non-naval shipping. In North Africa, Allied and Axis powers remained at one anothers throats, as the balance of the war was decided in a see-saw action of advance and retreat, across the great deserts of Libya and Egypt.All told, it was indeed a nervous and sober compliment of crew and passengers that steamed cautiously over the most dangerous oceanic region ever known. And, as time would tell, they had every right to be, because they were about to undergo some of the most famous trials and tribulations of the war. The Shipwreck of the MV Dunedin Star: The History of the Famous British Ship during World War II, chronicles one of the most famous rescue stories of the war. This audiobook depicts important people, places, and events, and you will learn about the Dunedin Star like never before.

Members Reviews:

This isn't a war book so much as a classic ...

This isn't a war book so much as a classic saga about marooned ship passengers, and the daring rescue missions that ultimately brought most of them home alive.Â

A wreck still to be seen .

A very interesting story well written showing real drama of an unplanned rescue of what could have caused more deaths .

Four Stars

Not having known about this, it was hood to learn of it.

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Title: Sons and Soldiers

Subtitle: The Jews Who Escaped the Nazis and Returned for Retribution

Author: Bruce Henderson

Narrator: Brett Barry

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-25-17

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

The story of young German Jews who escaped the Nazis, most often without their families, only to return a few years later to war-torn Europe as members of an elite secret US Army unit.

The young men who would become known as The Ritchie Boys arrived in America as 'enemy aliens', and although they were allowed to enlist in the US military, they were distrusted by everyone. So, in effect, they became outsiders all over again. Until one day in 1942, when the Pentagon woke up to the incredible asset they had on their hands. These men knew the language, culture and psychology of the enemy better than any Americans and had the greatest motivation to fight Hitler's anti-Semitic regime.

The Pentagon came up with a top-secret plan to harness their expertise by training them in the art of prisoner interrogation. And so off they were sent, back into the belly of the beast, Jews returning to Nazi Germany to occupy the very front lines of battlefields across Europe. Many of them reentered Europe on D-day. Their mission, to extract vital intel from freshly captured POWs about troop movements and command structures and so on, was hugely successful and provided key information that led to victory by the Allied forces.

Meanwhile, few of these men knew what had happened to the families they left behind in Germany, families who had sacrificed to send them on to the safety of America. As the intelligence they gathered revealed increasingly horrific details about the Holocaust (most of which was only then beginning to come to light), they came to fear - and, in many cases, discovered - that the worst had befallen their own fathers and mothers and siblings.

Members Reviews:

Enough Materiel for a Series of WWII Movies

The second most astonishing thing about this account â after deducing that someone (or doubtless several highly-placed someones) in the bowels of the Big Green Army Machine in the early days of WWII had the good sense and forethought to utilize that very specialized human capital presented to the US Army in the form of young male German-Jewish refugees in the most useful possible manner â is that it took this long to produce a book focusing on their experiences. There was a well-received film documentaryThe Ritchie Boysin recent years, but since the work done by the so-called âRitchie Boysâ was in the service of military intelligence â well, loose lips sink ships, and people doing quiet work behind the scenes usually are prone to keep on being quiet for years afterwards.

Camp Ritchie was the wartime training facility for US Army Intelligence. Any serviceman who was discovered to be fluent in German, French, Russian, Italian, Polish â or other useful languages â were sent there for special training; intelligence operations, counterintelligence, interrogation, psychological warfare â and interrogation. Almost fifteen percent of those who passed through Camp Ritchie were German-Jewish refugees, fresh from the Old Country, rather than second or third-generation descendants of ethnic Germans who had held onto their original language. This narrative concentrates on the experiences of six of them; all of whom had escaped from Germany as boys and teenagers, some by the skin of their teeth. Most had left parents, siblings, and close kin behind, one had been briefly imprisoned in Dachau after Kristallnacht.

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Title: Koh-i-Noor

Subtitle: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond

Author: William Dalrymple, Anita Anand

Narrator: Leighton Pugh

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-15-17

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 19 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

The first comprehensive and authoritative history of the Koh-i Noor, arguably the most celebrated and mythologised jewel in the world, from the internationally acclaimed and best-selling historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand.

On 29 March 1849, the 10-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company in a formal act of submission not only swathes of the richest land in India but also arguably the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.

Under commission from the British East India Company, gossip from Delhi bazaars was woven into what would become the accepted history of the Koh-i-Noor. Now, for the first time, 150 years after it was written, this version is finally challenged, freeing the diamond from the fog of mythology which has clung to it for so long. The resulting history is one of greed, conquest, murder, torture, colonialism and appropriation through an impressive slice of South and Central Asian history. Masterly, powerful and erudite, this is history at its most compelling and invigorating.

Members Reviews:

Fascinating

This book is divided into two parts. The first part is written by William Dalrymple, who is an authority on 18th and 19th century India. He tells the story of the Koh-I-Noor diamond from the time Persian Nadu Shah humiliated the Mughal Emperor, sacked Delhi and sized the diamond, the Peacock throne and other jewels. The Mughal Dynasty was of Turkic-Mongol origin and ruled most of Northern India from 16th to mid-18th century. The Shah was murdered and the Afghan King took the diamond. It was then taken by the Sikhs under Ranjit Singh. When the British conquered the Punjab in 1846, the ten-year-old King Duleep Singh gave it to Queen Victoria. It is now in the Tower of London.

Dalrymple makes it clear that the history of the diamond prior to being captured by the Persian Nadu Shah is only based on guess work and fables. The author goes into the relationship the Indians have with gems including culture and religion. Dalrymple states that in ancient times the Indians sifted the diamonds from the sands of stream beds. All diamonds came from India until the 18th century when diamonds were discovered in Brazil.

The author states there were three great diamonds taken from the Mughal Emperor by the Persian Nadu Shah: the Koh-I-Noor is in England, the Darya-I-Noor is in Iran and the Orlov is in the center of the Imperial Scepter of Catherine the Great in Russia.

The second part of the book is written by journalist Anita Anand. She tells the story of King Duleep Singh. Anand sites the history of the diamond in the hands of the British. The author also discusses the characteristics of the diamond. It is thought the diamond came from the Kollur mine in Andhra Pradesh India in the 13th century. It was claimed to be 793 carets and 158.6g uncut and a clear color.

The book is well written and meticulously researched. The authors tell the complicated story drawing on a wide range of literature and memoirs. Koh-I-Noor in Persian means Mountain of Light.

I read this as an audiobook downloaded from Audible. Leighton Pugh does a good job narrating the book.

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Title: From the Ruins of Empire

Subtitle: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia

Author: Pankaj Mishra

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Format: Unabridged

Length: 13 hrs and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-14-17

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

A little more than a century ago, as the Japanese navy annihilated the giant Russian one at the Battle of Tsushima, original thinkers across Asia, working independently, sought to frame a distinctly Asian intellectual tradition that would inform and inspire the continent's anticipated rise to dominance. Asian dominance did not come to pass, and those thinkers - Tagore, Gandhi, and later Nehru in India; Liang Qichao and Sun Yatsen in China; Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Abdurreshi al Ibrahim in the ruins of the Ottoman Empire - are seen as outriders from the main anticolonial tradition. But Pankaj Mishra shows that it was otherwise in this stereotype-shattering book. His enthralling group portrait of like minds scattered across a vast continent makes clear that modern Asia's revolt against the West is not the one led by faith-fired terrorists and thwarted peasants but one with deep roots in the work of thinkers who devised a view of life that was neither modern nor antimodern, neither colonialist nor anticolonialist. In broad, deep, dramatic chapters, Mishra tells the stories of these figures, unpacks their philosophies, and reveals their shared goal of a greater Asia.

Critic Reviews:

"Well-researched and crisply written, this scintillating work will help American readers understand the political and intellectual roots of Islamism and other non- and anti-Western thought in Asia today." (

Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

The Story of Power Told as Subaltern History

Let me caveat the rest of what I write by saying that I've only gotten about a third through the book. Much of my critique might be found in the final chapters.

My priamry critique is that Mishra is in awe of centers and rather neglectful of peripheries. He's making a valid argument that a response to colonialism was the construction for the homogeneous, centralized, nation-states that could hold their own ground. I'm not yet finished with the book, but I'm hoping that he'll come back to a defense of an intellectual tradition of pre-modern Asian statecraft that had far less interest in direct-rule and interference in peripheries (Ottoman millet system; China's tributary system; 'padi states'). So far, there are no Uighurs, Tibetans, Visayans, Tanka, Hmong/Miao or anyone else that didn't lay the intellectual foundations for the modern Asian nation state power that eventually arose. It's a history of rising power told, I believe incorrectly, as a history of the subaltern. We are supposed to watch with awe as Chinese emperor's capture the steppes people and Japan beats Russia in colonizing Korea.

Mishra is right that the West-centric story of Asian modernity is insufficient. But Mishra is writing the intellectual history of the Ayatollah's, Mao's, Xi Jinping's, Aquino's, and Modi's. If we look a little harder, we'd also find a neglected local body of intellectual development that prizes diversity, autonomy, and political-cultural pluralism that could serve as an intellectual foundation for the politically frustrated youth and scholars in Hong Kong. Without this history, they're largely turning to 'Western' ideas, history, and scholarship to express their desires.

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Title: History of Korea

Author: IntroBooks

Narrator: Andrea Giordani

Format: Unabridged

Length: 45 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-16-17

Publisher: IntroBooks

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: History, World

Publisher's Summary:

With a history so vast, it is difficult to preserve the traditions and cultures from the olden times, yet Korea seems to have maintained it despite the many invasions and situations that it went through. Nationalism and patriotism is reflected in all the Koreans.

Every country has their own mythology and belief of how their people came to be, and the Koreans have theirs too. The Korean mythology speaks of a demigod Hwan Woong who came down on earth on Taebak Mountain, which is now the Gangwon-do Province in South Korea. The demigod met a bear and tiger living in a cave who wished to become humans. The demigod asked them to eat 20 cloves of garlic and refrain from sunlight for 100 days if they wished to become man. The tiger failed the test, as it couldn't withstand the dark, but after 21 days, the bear became a woman. Since there was no one for the woman to procreate, Hwan Woong turned himself into a man, temporarily creating the Korean race. Maybe this is why the Koreans love garlic and use it extensively in their cooking.

While the mythology seems too fun to hear, the history of Korea speaks of something else. Korea happens to be one of the most culturally homogeneous countries in the world. They have very few physical and cultural differences amongst them. Koreans have great respect for their ancestors and elders. Confucian culture dominates the area and it is seen in other factors of life as well, where age and marital status of a person gives him or her certain seniority. The Koreans are simple people today with an extensive history of their ancestors.

Members Reviews:

brief but adequate to get overview

not the best standard for history documentation, but it did provide me with answers to questions I had. Not the place to learn about modern Korea as only the gist is given.

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Title: Pat Tillman

Author: Jerry Doss

Narrator: John Sipple

Format: Unabridged

Length: 29 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-15-17

Publisher: Jerry Doss

Genres: History, Military

Publisher's Summary:

Pat Tillman left his career with the Arizona Cardinals and enlisted in the United States Army in June 2002 in response to the September 11 attacks. His service in Iraq and Afghanistan, and subsequent death, were the subject of much controversy. Tillman joined the Army Rangers and served several tours in combat before he died in the mountains of Afghanistan. Initially, the Army reported that Tillman had gunned down by enemy forces. But the truth would be revealed later, when the Pentagon informed the Tillman family that he had been killed as a result of friendly fire. Controversy raged as the military was criticized for delaying the disclosure for weeks after Tillman's memorial in order to save face for the US Army.